Since 1986, the National Screen Institute has been one of Canada’s most established national training organizations for storytellers across film, television and digital media. The institute supports creators from Indigenous and equity-deserving communities and responds to evolving industry needs through career-focused training and mentorship, contributing to a more sustainable industry and workforce.
To celebrate their 40th anniversary this CanFilmDay, we’re highlighting a selection of films developed through the former NSI Features First program – one part of the institute’s broader legacy of supporting creators and stories from across Canada.
THE RETREAT
Pat Mills, 2021
A weekend among gay friends at an isolated woodland cabin turns into a fight to the death against a band of homophobes who hunt and torture for sport. A tense, gory thriller, this cleverly plays with and against horror movie tropes to great effect!
WATCH NOW: Tubi / AMC Plus
LEVEL 16
Danishka Esterhazy, 2018
Girls in a prison-like boarding school embark on a desperate search to uncover the awful truth behind their captivity. A clever thriller that will leave you guessing at every turn!
WATCH NOW: Apple (Buy/Rent) / Plex
SUPERGRID
Lowell Dean, 2018
In the near apocalyptic future, a young smuggler is forced to convince his older brother to get back on the “Grid” and help him clear a debt. A post-apocalyptic thriller from the director of WolfCop, Die Alone, and Another WolfCop.
WATCH NOW: Apple (Buy/Rent)
VENUS
Eisha Marjara, 2017
Sid is under pressure to marry a nice Indian girl and raise a family. Sid’s East Indian mother yearns to have grandchildren. Her dreams are about to come true, but not in the way she could’ve ever imagined. When Sid comes out as a woman, a 14 year old boy named Ralph literally shows up at her door announcing that Sid is his parent. What happens when gender, generations and cultures collide to create a truly modern family?
WATCH NOW: Google Play (Buy/Rent)
ADVENTURES IN PUBLIC SCHOOL
Kyle Rideout, 2017
Socially awkward Liam has been home-schooled his whole life. But when he falls in love with a popular one-legged girl, he abandons his mother’s suffocating love and enrolls in public school. A charming and funny coming of age story.
WATCH NOW: CBC Gem
THE DARK STRANGER
Chris Trebilcock, 2015
Leah, a talented young artist, is recovering from a recent traumatic event and afraid to leave her own home. She begins drawing a dark graphic novel in which an ominous Dark Stranger pursues a lonely girl doll across a foreboding fairy tale landscape.
WATCH NOW: Apple (Buy/Rent)
I DECLARE WAR
Jason Lapeyre, 2012
A group of friends play an innocent game of Capture the Flag, arming themselves with nothing more than sticks & their imagination. One day the game takes on a more serious tone as their imaginations take them beyond the rules of the game.
WATCH NOW: Hoopla
FETCHING CODY
David Ray, 2005
Drug dealer Art (Jay Baruchel) is panic-stricken when his prostitute girlfriend Cody (Sarah Lind) overdoses and falls into a coma. Help comes in the unlikely form of a homeless man’s grungy armchair that remarkably is a time machine. To rescue Cody from her ill-fated future, Art uses the chair to go back in time and change the past.
WATCH NOW: Apple (Buy/Rent) / Plex
TURNING PAIGE
Robert Cuffley, 2001
Paige is forced to confront awful memories when her brother Trevor comes home after a long absence. Before the siblings and their father finally face reality, they engage in a variety of conversational games that bring humor to a potentially gloomy topic.
WATCH NOW: Prime / Plex
THE BEND
Jennifer Kierans, 2011
17 year old Jason Campbell thinks he’s losing his mind and he could be right. His brother Mike killed himself on prom night exactly one year ago, and Jason knows that bipolar disorder is hereditary. With Mike’s girlfriend and best friend home from college for a memorial service, Jason vows to find out what happened the night his brother died.
WATCH NOW: Prime